Elias

Author’s note: This story is pulled from the archives. I wrote it when I was 16, but as I still enjoy it immensely, I take that to mean it’s worth sharing. Enjoy~

Heat from the blood red sun evaporated the sweat just as it appeared on Sebastion’s face. His lips cracked and chaffed with every excruciating sip of hot air. His face had long become dark and red. It matched the sun. And the iron-tinted sand. Everything in this god-forsaken land was red, dry, and unbearable. He had been under this open sun for 15 years, waiting for his chance. It had finally come.

The wall was amazing, more than amazing, beyond belief, breath taking. What lay on the other side of that wall… He didn’t want to think about it now; he still had to pass the test. The wall stood 60 feet high and spanned beyond the horizon in either direction. It was perfectly solid, not a chink or crack in its flawless, divinely formed face. Impenetrable. Except through the small gate he had come to approach. The Fitch guarded the entry. This is where they give the test. Only those who pass may enter.

Sebastion quickened his pace. His blood felt hot. He didn’t want to wait any longer. Fifteen years had been enough. Several boys and girls his age waiting in an anxious line. Others could be seen approaching from a distance. The door in the wall was only big enough for one person to enter alone. It opened, and darkness crept out from the opening. The next in line entered, and the door slammed noiselessly shut. Waiting for each opening and closing of the door make time stand still. The sun wavered above his head, refusing to budge. Exhaustion began to eat at his mind. The door opened. A short red-haired girl with a small, but drawn face sighed, lowered her eyes, and stepped forward. She was swallowed into the darkness. The door closed behind her.

Something rough grabbed at his leg. It squeezed. Sebastion recoiled, ripping his leg back. He spun around and looked down. His eyes widened in disgust. Hunched across the sand in front of him lay a naked, ancient creature. He thought it was a man. His skin was hardened crisp and cracked. It smelled of char. Pale wisps of hair covered his body. It lay hunched there, one still outstretched hand hanging in the air. The other covered over a wound in his side. No blood, no puss, came from that wound, though it looked fresh almost. Scabs barely formed around its edges. Sebastion could not force his eyes away from the spectacle. He felt shamed.

Its head lifted slowly off the ground. Heavy eyelids hung over bulging, down-turned eyes. Sebastion could see no mouth, only a crevice in its face, below a thick mass of scar tissue he supposed was its nose. Its eyes flicked open. Sebastion flinched. Those eyes. Crystal, deep majestic blue. Clear essence emanated from their core. This man gazed directly into his mind. Sebastion froze, his mouth hung open. The old man exhaled hot sand and air, and then he began to speak.

“Order is unreal—a harmless, sensible smiling mask men slide between two dire realities, the self and the world, two snake pits. Learn to live. Not to lose yourself.” The uncanny words sent Sebastion quivering. But his eyes remained steadfast to the old man’s.

A wad of spit struck the man’s face, sending him sprawling back to the sand. “You old fool. Get out of here before I cut your eyes out!” A large man in a black uniform hovered over the pitiful body on the ground. He squared a boot into the old man’s ribs. With a grunt and a hiss, the old man slithered away, disappearing into the sand.

Sebastion hadn’t noticed the gate open. But before he turned back towards the wall, the black-clad guard had disappeared, and the door remained shut.

“Eighty-three.”

“What?”

“I said, that old thing’s been round here for eighty-three years.”

“What does he want?”

“Can’t say. But that’s when he took his test. The Fitch tell us he simply failed the test and won’t leave the area. But the Fitch aren’t big for letting their secrets out.

“But nobody fails… Is he a Deficient?”

“Sure, probably. But even Deficients pass the test.”

“He must be lower than a Deficient. Has anyone ever done any tests on him?”

“There’s nothing lower than a Deficient. At least according to the orders.”

“I see… I wonder where he comes from. How he survives. That wound. How did he get that?”

“Nobody knows. He’s had that since he arrived at the gate.”

“He’s lived 83 years out there with that wound! May the sun speak!”

Looking down towards the gate, the two guards noticed that the boy the old man had harassed walked through the door. The old man appeared again, hunched on the crest of a dune, just as the door slid shut.

Sebastion’s eyes dilated, attempting to adjust to the darkness. But there was no light to adjust to. He just stood there, uncertain what to do. A numbing chill filled the room.

“What is your name?” A voice echoed as if from the end of a hallway.

“Uh, Sebastion,” he relied nervously.

“Wrong. What is your name?” The echo repeated.

“Sebastion,” he answered more firmly.

“Wrong. What is your name?”

The question came. And he answered. Over and over, for what seemed an eternity. His name, Sebastion, was wrong, and there was nothing he could do about it. He began to tremble. Falling to the cold floor, tears wet his face. His name was Sebastion. He thought. Was it? How was he named Sebastion anyways? When did he become Sebastion? Was he born Sebastion or was that just something given to him? Would he always be Sebastion? Was that really his name?

“Then what is my real name you bastard!” He threw himself in the air, lungs pulsing heavy, heart pounding. He felt life. And then it was gone.

“You are classified worker R11238-Q. Please proceed.” The echoing was gone. In its place whirred a high-pitched recording. But R11238-Q proceeded ahead into the darkness.

The old man felt awful. Not the normal queasy pain of his wound, or the regular despair from watching them drop to their demise. They come uncalled, blown to their damnation by the shifting wind, year after year, falling into a life of nothing. Where they come from, he did not know. He once did, when he himself made the journey to this despicable wall. But that was a long time ago. Eighty-three years trying to save one, just one. But nothing. The young boy looked promising, a sparkle in his hazel eyes. But no. It had been too long already. Too long.

The line of children was shorter now, and it had slowed considerably. He approached them surreptitiously, inspecting these sacrifices. The door opened. A black-clad guard rushed out towards him. The old man looked up. “What is your name?” He rasped at the young man behind the mask. His hatred of betrayal, even when inevitable, ran strongly in his voice.

The boy in black stopped. He blinked. His head twitched slightly. “My. Name. Is. R11238-Q”. It came out slowly, but it came out. “I have been instructed to terminate you.”

The old man whispered. “Order is unreal.” The boy reeled back. Shut his eyes. Something flashed in front of him.

“A smiling mask.” Flash.

“Two snake pits.” Flash.

“You lost yourself Sebastion.”

“Noooo!” The boy swung a fist at the old man. A knife flashed into his hand seconds before it sliced open the old man’s side, opening his wound again forever. Pain reached back up through the boy’s arm and into his chest, flooding his mind. Unbearable pain. He tore off his mask and slid the knife through his ribs. The blade cooled his heart instantly, severed the strings of life.

“My name is Sebastion!”

The old man watched the boy die, watched him die with his freedom. Now it was his turn, and he also knew his name.